We live in hysterical times, according to the men who would govern us. Boris Johnson has described the post-referendum mood as “a kind of hysteria, a contagious mourning”, likening it to the outpouring of grief after the death of Princess Diana. Meanwhile John McDonnell warned that it is time to calm down: “There’s been a sort of mass hysteria in virtually all our political parties and I can’t completely understand it.”
Indeed: hysteria, an ungovernable emotional excess has certainly come to the fore lately and is now perplexing the very men who embodied it. A lot of politicians look frankly out of control.
At the top of the tree we have cliques of men back-stabbing each other. Johnson has been betrayed, we are told, by Michael Gove “who has an emotional need to gossip,” especially when he has had a drink and it all becomes a bit leaky, it has been alleged. Farage, architect of so much hatred, walks away. Rightio!
Jeremy Corbyn’s aides over the weekend portrayed him as too frail and fragile to meet his own deputy while another brother portrays him as “a man of steel”. Tony Blair turns up to give advice, knowing full well that his day of reckoning is coming this week. One of his former assistants in taking us to war, Alastair Campbell, is everywhere advising Labour on how to unite and restore trust.
Do none of these men see themselves for what they are? Are they so powered by emotional ties to their own cliques?
A divided country looks on and sees what else is on offer: the unyielding Theresa May, the wannabe Thatcher Andrea Leadsom, a possible challenge from “sensible” Angela Eagle. There is a new sense that if anyone can manage this crisis and take back control, it is a woman. Indeed May’s gambit is that she will rise above the squabbling, ego-driven boys, remaining fairly free of emotion.
Her coldness now looks like an asset. Obviously she had to “explain” her childlessness to the Mail on Sunday but she dutifully jumped that ridiculous hurdle. Anyone who has heard her talk about managing her diabetes cannot fail to find her attitude brave and admirable. This and her directional wardrobe are all we are going to get for personality but that will do for now. May is the anti-hysteria candidate, “calm down dear” personified. Though remember hysteria is often presumed to be the province of women, deriving as it does from the Greek word for uterus.
Should May win she should call an election as even she cannot suppress the emotions on both sides now. Each side claims that the feelings of the other are dishonest and invalid. The appeal to law to negate the result of referendum may actually further inflame feeling, though this is done in the name of rationality. AC Grayling called the referendum “a snapshot of sentiment”. Blair appears to think the will of the people is a moveable feast. I find this incredible. Ignoring what this referendum told us does not strike me as rational, however apprehensive the result has made some.
In these anxious times the last people who seem able to show leadership are those shrieking about with some flailing version of masculinity that is leaky, porous, inflexible on different days of the week. If this referendum were only about lies and gut feelings as the remainers say, then they should at least admit that it has exposed an underlying sense of dissatisfaction that politicians must pay attention to.
The messiness of the split is everywhere and it is dangerous. Enter the stern women. Authority rests with those who despite the carnage around them seem to be able to contain themselves. As men emote, women show control.
